ON TEXTILE PLANTS 



through the agency of bees and other insects. There 

 is no difficulty in hybridizing different species. On 

 the contrary, it is difficult to prevent cross-pollena- 

 tion where different kinds of cotton grow in the 

 same vicinity. There is danger of contamination 

 of the strain of any particular cotton in this way. 

 But, on the other hand, there is also the possibility 

 of the production of new and important varieties 

 through such crossing. 



IMPROVEMENT THROUGH SELECTION. 



Until very recently, as already intimated, the 

 improvement in cotton has taken place almost or 

 quite exclusively through the selection of seed, 

 without any conscious effort on the part of the 

 grower to pre-determine the characters of the seed 

 by cross-fertilizing the parent plants. 



Indeed, until somewhat recently, cotton growers 

 in common with other agriculturists, have been 

 more or less oblivious to the need of care in the 

 selection of seed. And even now, according to so 

 good an authority as Professor Thomas F. Hunt, 

 of the New York College of Agriculture, probably 

 half the cotton seed planted is taken at random 

 from the public gin. Yet the importance of selec- 

 tion has come to be understood in recent years 

 by a good many growers, and the old slipshod 

 methods have been abandoned by such cotton 

 raisers as appreciate the advantages of applying 



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